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Remember advertising? Remember media plans? If you believe all those social media experts and SAAS platforms, you’d think advertising has gone away. Don’t believe it. Marketing has always been about crafting a relevant message and distributing that content via the channels where your target audience spends time learning about his/her industry. SEO marries the user queries with my solutions. MORE

The New Year is a great time to either start a brand new blog or revamp your exiting website. One of the ways to improve your blog in 2012 is by using plugins that make it more social media optimized and SEO friendly. Let’s have a look at the top plugins that I recommend you utilize in 2012. Social Media WordPress Plugins for 2012. Disqus Comment System. SEO Facebook Comment. Tweet Old Post. MORE

I have always believed that those who can’t lead, are forced to resort to the tactic of fear in order to get people to listen and follow them. mean, let’s face it: fear is a powerful force in the human mind. There are some prognosticators that would have you believe that 2012 is going to be a bleak year for business. Well, I am an optimist and plan to present an alternative view! MORE

I’ve said many times before that the overwhelming majority of marketing activities are dreadfully unsuccessful. And now, after playing in the traditional marketing margins for years and chasing smaller and smaller response rates, many marketers are realizing that we have quite literally reached the point of no return with much of our outbound marketing. The future of marketing is inbound. MORE

Happy to welcome my daughter Lauren Schaefer back as a guest blogger on {grow} … . Hello readers! It has been too long and I’ve missed you! I’ve been a bit busy graduating from college, moving to New York City, starting my job as a professional event planner and writing my own blog that has nothing to do with social media. But now I’ve had some time to breathe, so time to write! MORE

In just a few short years, Twitter has transformed from an odd little sort of public IM service where people posted what they just ate for lunch or what their cat was doing at the moment into one of the big four social networks and a significant channel for news, PR & marketing, politics and more. It has enabled revolutions in real life as well as in digital marketing. More than 80% of U.S. MORE

Writing the subject lines for your emails can be one of the most stressful steps of email marketing. Is it engaging? Too short? Too long? Too boring? Will people click 'delete' because of it? Or will they open it? Will it even get to them, or will it trigger SPAM filters? It's the last of these concerns that we're here to help with today. Back off, SPAM filters! Commerce. As seen on. Buy direct. MORE

As a marketer, your most important job is to generate leads for your business. But what good are those leads if they’re not managed properly? These 7 statistics show that if you’re not taking advantage of lead nurturing , you’re losing customers and revenue, and very quickly. 1. Only 25% of leads are legitimate and should go to sales. 50% are qualified but not ready to buy. Source: Gleanster Research). Nearly half of your leads will not be ready for a sales call immediately after their first conversion. Source: SilverPop/DemandGen Report). Source: InsideSales.com). Source: MarketingSherpa). MORE

Ecommerce companies that invest in inbound marketing will greatly increase their opportunity to grow online sales, lower COCA (cost of customer acquisition), and increase new customer retention. Consumers connect, rate, discuss, and consume product information and reviews like never before, making a strong online presence paramount for all sizes of ecommerce businesses. Enjoy! Connect with HubSpot MORE

There’s a lot to like about the email campaign I received (image below) recently from Infusionsoft , a maker of sales and marketing automation software for small businesses. Make the offer look like an offer. The free guide on offer is an ebook, a downloadable PDF. It is not – as the offer image might have you believe – a spiral-bound hard copy. Misleading, you say? Perhaps. What would I change? MORE

Can you guess the subject of this photo? This is a predawn picture of Australia’s Lake Eyre salt flat taken by the extraordinary photographer Murray Fredericks. Every winter for eight years, Fredericks rode his bike into the heart of the most featureless place on earth and camped for five weeks — to take photographs. I have become obsessed with his pictures of “nothing.” MORE

Unless you’ve been living under a rock for the past several months, you’re undoubtedly familiar with Google+ and have hopefully opened an account on the newest social media platform. Even after trying out its interface, do you still find yourself asking what exactly it is or what you should be doing with it? Do you think that Google+ is one too many platforms to spend time on? Other. MORE

I’m delighted to present today eight exciting new mini-case studies which demonstrate the power of social collaboration to create business value through new product development. These were curated by Amy Kenly and her team at innovation consulting firm Kalypso (Amy will also be a speaker at the April 27 Social Slam event!). think you’re going to be energized by these inspiring ideas! MORE

We're pleased to present this guest post by Casey Hibbard , customer success story specialist, to kick off the new year. Read on to see all the ways that companies benefit from customer stories. Not only are positive customer experiences powerful in attracting new customers, but in fact, organizations that sell without them could be losing out. Make sure your teaser is appropriately attractive. MORE

by Jesse Noyes | Tweet this Gargantuan search king, Google, announced changes yesterday intended to provide people with highly personalized search results and drive folks to the company’s nascent social network Google+. Google is billing its new social search initiative “Search plus Your World.” You can get a full synopsis at Google’s blog. So, let’s say I wanted to search for “Antique Typewriters.” MORE

I recently hosted a fantastic roundtable discussion on Focus.com on the topic of Increasing Landing Page Conversion Rates. Among the topics discussed: Linking prospects to a landing page, microsite, or website, and which direction makes sense. How to implement A/B tests and what factors to consider. The content and design elements of a landing page that drives conversions. MORE

As a freelance marketing copywriter, you may be called on to write all different kinds of copy for all different kinds of companies. Most of the time, transferring your skills from product to product is fairly easy; there are basic principles of marketing that can be easily applied across multiple scenarios. Who’s making the decision? How long is the sales cycle? Ever gotten it wrong? MORE

“On average (and with little variation among industries) customers will contact a Sales rep when they independently complete about 60% of the purchasing decision process.” ” This should be a wake-call for all leaders in companies who sell products to other businesses. The world is passing you by. Over half of the decision is complete before they talk to you. The Corporate Executive Board surveyed 1,900 buyers to uncover insights regarding purchasing behavior. “The survey results were surprising.” ” That data should surprise and shock you. What do you think? MORE

Seth Godin is an insanely successful entrepreneur, marketing author and speaker. Is his social media model of broadcasting without engagement scalable for you too? recently received this inquiry from a friend: I launched a new blog on Sunday. He has over 137,000 followers but that Twitter account follows 0. Well, if it works for Seth, why can’t it work for you? Let’s take a look. MORE

Without marketing metrics, marketers cannot manage investments or show the value of marketing. However, without careful selection of metrics, diligent analysis and a clear overarching vision, those same metrics can become the biggest barrier to successful long-term marketing programs. Short term metrics are easily gamed, and it often happens unintentionally. Is traffic a key goal? Is revenue key? MORE

I took a few minutes to layout initial thoughts to @ garyvee’s suggestion that there’s no such thing as social media, and that social media was the same thing as the internet. Minor technicality, I'll let it slide.]. Yes, social media has gotten to be a very broad word, maybe too big for it’s britches, and applied to a lot of different things. It’s about whole vs part. MORE

Buying email marketing lists. It makes many think of the spam emails selling a database of millions of top executives. The challenge with buying email marketing lists is you don’t know if you are getting something worthwhile until it is too late and few marketers understand the email list market. According to IDC, the challenge is not just email sellers. Keep an audit trail. MORE

by Joe Chernov | Tweet this “We’re gonna change the world” has become the battle cry for many tech startups. When you’re bootstrapping a company against all mathematical odds, the only thing better than ambition is wild ambition. But let’s face it: very few companies actually change the world. After all, it’s a tall order. It heralds a refined approach to content marketing. MORE

It is no secret that link building is critical to SEO success. However, some people often ignore internal links because they are just not aware of their SEO benefits. To most to do-it-yourselfers (DiY), link building for SEO means external or inbound or backlinks. These are links that originate from another site and point to a page on your domain. What are internal links? Types of internal links. MORE

When a customer is disgruntled, the act of solving his problem in a rational and authentic way – which means not hiding the truth – is an excellent opportunity to turn him into the most loyal customer you ever had. Does this mean we should mess up as a strategy? Of course not. You [.]. Blog Connected marketing Customer relationships Customer service Research conversion customer reviews reevoo reputation Right Now Retail Consumer Report MORE

Research firm Gleanster released its free “Gleansight” report on marketing automation late last month. I was principal author for much of the document and drafted the survey questions, although I didn’t write the individual vendor profiles or administer the survey. (I’ll also share in the revenues, which come when vendors pay for the names of people who download the report.) Back to the data. MORE

At the occasion of our latest event in December, we joined forces with agency The Reference, to conduct a survey regarding the digital marketing evolutions in my home country, Belgium. The objective: give an overview of the landscape in Belgium in terms of budget, resource allocation, satisfaction, challenges and plans for 2012. We targeted decision [.]. Blog Research digital marketing Belgium mobile websites ROI social media Belgium The Reference MORE

Thought leadership. Everyone’s claiming it but, by very definition, only a handful ever delivers. So how do you ensure that your content marketing strategy positions you as one of the few? . Follow the seven R’s – Resonant, Rare, Road Mapped, Robust, Rounded, Rooted and Re-used. Five reasons to develop a thought leadership strategy. B2B marketing has always been better suited to engagement over broadcast. Those consistently doing so and coupling it with solid advice or lateral thinking become known as thought leaders. It’s a valuable moniker for many reasons: It sets you apart. MORE

Marketers spend a lot of time drafting poignant email copy, designing wonderfully branded email templates, and crafting succinct and enticing email subject lines that get open and click-through rates skyrocketing. But before hitting send, have you considered if your subscribers will even get the opportunity to read your email? 14 Things Not to Do If You Want Your Emails to Land in Inboxes. 1.) MORE

I breached the 10,000-follower mark on Twitter yesterday. marked this milestone quietly because I’m not big on numbers games and have been outspoken against counting success solely in terms of fans and followers. Nevertheless, I have to admit to taking some pride in this number because of the way I reached it. have never played games to run up my follower count and I only tweet about stuff that interests me. The people who follow me have no incentive to do so other than to discover and learn from information I share. When I publish something, others help me promote it. The Road to 10K. MORE

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In just a few short years, Twitter has transformed from an odd little sort of public IM service where people posted what they just ate for lunch or what their cat was doing at the moment into one of the big four social networks and a significant channel for news, PR & marketing, politics and more. It has enabled revolutions in real life as well as in digital marketing. More than 80% of U.S.

I recently hosted a fantastic roundtable discussion on Focus.com on the topic of Increasing Landing Page Conversion Rates. Among the topics discussed: Linking prospects to a landing page, microsite, or website, and which direction makes sense. How to implement A/B tests and what factors to consider. The content and design elements of a landing page that drives conversions.

by Joe Chernov | Tweet this “We’re gonna change the world” has become the battle cry for many tech startups. When you’re bootstrapping a company against all mathematical odds, the only thing better than ambition is wild ambition. But let’s face it: very few companies actually change the world. After all, it’s a tall order. It heralds a refined approach to content marketing.

It is no secret that link building is critical to SEO success. However, some people often ignore internal links because they are just not aware of their SEO benefits. To most to do-it-yourselfers (DiY), link building for SEO means external or inbound or backlinks. These are links that originate from another site and point to a page on your domain. What are internal links? Types of internal links.

Research firm Gleanster released its free “Gleansight” report on marketing automation late last month. I was principal author for much of the document and drafted the survey questions, although I didn’t write the individual vendor profiles or administer the survey. (I’ll also share in the revenues, which come when vendors pay for the names of people who download the report.) Back to the data.

Remember advertising? Remember media plans? If you believe all those social media experts and SAAS platforms, you’d think advertising has gone away. Don’t believe it. Marketing has always been about crafting a relevant message and distributing that content via the channels where your target audience spends time learning about his/her industry. SEO marries the user queries with my solutions.

by Jesse Noyes | Tweet this Gargantuan search king, Google, announced changes yesterday intended to provide people with highly personalized search results and drive folks to the company’s nascent social network Google+. Google is billing its new social search initiative “Search plus Your World.” You can get a full synopsis at Google’s blog. So, let’s say I wanted to search for “Antique Typewriters.”

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Research firm Gleanster released its free “Gleansight” report on marketing automation late last month. I was principal author for much of the document and drafted the survey questions, although I didn’t write the individual vendor profiles or administer the survey. (I’ll also share in the revenues, which come when vendors pay for the names of people who download the report.) Back to the data.

Remember advertising? Remember media plans? If you believe all those social media experts and SAAS platforms, you’d think advertising has gone away. Don’t believe it. Marketing has always been about crafting a relevant message and distributing that content via the channels where your target audience spends time learning about his/her industry. SEO marries the user queries with my solutions.

by Jesse Noyes | Tweet this Gargantuan search king, Google, announced changes yesterday intended to provide people with highly personalized search results and drive folks to the company’s nascent social network Google+. Google is billing its new social search initiative “Search plus Your World.” You can get a full synopsis at Google’s blog. So, let’s say I wanted to search for “Antique Typewriters.”

Seth Godin is an insanely successful entrepreneur, marketing author and speaker. Is his social media model of broadcasting without engagement scalable for you too? recently received this inquiry from a friend: I launched a new blog on Sunday. He has over 137,000 followers but that Twitter account follows 0. Well, if it works for Seth, why can’t it work for you? Let’s take a look.

There’s a lot to like about the email campaign I received (image below) recently from Infusionsoft , a maker of sales and marketing automation software for small businesses. Make the offer look like an offer. The free guide on offer is an ebook, a downloadable PDF. It is not – as the offer image might have you believe – a spiral-bound hard copy. Misleading, you say? Perhaps. What would I change?

We're pleased to present this guest post by Casey Hibbard , customer success story specialist, to kick off the new year. Read on to see all the ways that companies benefit from customer stories. Not only are positive customer experiences powerful in attracting new customers, but in fact, organizations that sell without them could be losing out. Make sure your teaser is appropriately attractive.

I breached the 10,000-follower mark on Twitter yesterday. marked this milestone quietly because I’m not big on numbers games and have been outspoken against counting success solely in terms of fans and followers. Nevertheless, I have to admit to taking some pride in this number because of the way I reached it. have never played games to run up my follower count and I only tweet about stuff that interests me. The people who follow me have no incentive to do so other than to discover and learn from information I share. When I publish something, others help me promote it. The Road to 10K.

25 B2B marketing thought leaders answer the question "What do you expect to B2B marketers to be doing more of or differently in 2016?" The results are amazing insights around content marketing, achieving business results, alignment, employee advocacy, new technologies, customer experience and more.

Without marketing metrics, marketers cannot manage investments or show the value of marketing. However, without careful selection of metrics, diligent analysis and a clear overarching vision, those same metrics can become the biggest barrier to successful long-term marketing programs. Short term metrics are easily gamed, and it often happens unintentionally. Is traffic a key goal? Is revenue key?

“On average (and with little variation among industries) customers will contact a Sales rep when they independently complete about 60% of the purchasing decision process.” ” This should be a wake-call for all leaders in companies who sell products to other businesses. The world is passing you by. Over half of the decision is complete before they talk to you. The Corporate Executive Board surveyed 1,900 buyers to uncover insights regarding purchasing behavior. “The survey results were surprising.” ” That data should surprise and shock you. What do you think?

Writing the subject lines for your emails can be one of the most stressful steps of email marketing. Is it engaging? Too short? Too long? Too boring? Will people click 'delete' because of it? Or will they open it? Will it even get to them, or will it trigger SPAM filters? It's the last of these concerns that we're here to help with today. Back off, SPAM filters! Commerce. As seen on. Buy direct.

Buying email marketing lists. It makes many think of the spam emails selling a database of millions of top executives. The challenge with buying email marketing lists is you don’t know if you are getting something worthwhile until it is too late and few marketers understand the email list market. According to IDC, the challenge is not just email sellers. Keep an audit trail.

Thought leadership. Everyone’s claiming it but, by very definition, only a handful ever delivers. So how do you ensure that your content marketing strategy positions you as one of the few? . Follow the seven R’s – Resonant, Rare, Road Mapped, Robust, Rounded, Rooted and Re-used. Five reasons to develop a thought leadership strategy. B2B marketing has always been better suited to engagement over broadcast. Those consistently doing so and coupling it with solid advice or lateral thinking become known as thought leaders. It’s a valuable moniker for many reasons: It sets you apart.

The New Year is a great time to either start a brand new blog or revamp your exiting website. One of the ways to improve your blog in 2012 is by using plugins that make it more social media optimized and SEO friendly. Let’s have a look at the top plugins that I recommend you utilize in 2012. Social Media WordPress Plugins for 2012. Disqus Comment System. SEO Facebook Comment. Tweet Old Post.

Can you guess the subject of this photo? This is a predawn picture of Australia’s Lake Eyre salt flat taken by the extraordinary photographer Murray Fredericks. Every winter for eight years, Fredericks rode his bike into the heart of the most featureless place on earth and camped for five weeks — to take photographs. I have become obsessed with his pictures of “nothing.”

Marketers spend a lot of time drafting poignant email copy, designing wonderfully branded email templates, and crafting succinct and enticing email subject lines that get open and click-through rates skyrocketing. But before hitting send, have you considered if your subscribers will even get the opportunity to read your email? 14 Things Not to Do If You Want Your Emails to Land in Inboxes. 1.)

I’ve said many times before that the overwhelming majority of marketing activities are dreadfully unsuccessful. And now, after playing in the traditional marketing margins for years and chasing smaller and smaller response rates, many marketers are realizing that we have quite literally reached the point of no return with much of our outbound marketing. The future of marketing is inbound.

I took a few minutes to layout initial thoughts to @ garyvee’s suggestion that there’s no such thing as social media, and that social media was the same thing as the internet. Minor technicality, I'll let it slide.]. Yes, social media has gotten to be a very broad word, maybe too big for it’s britches, and applied to a lot of different things. It’s about whole vs part.

As a freelance marketing copywriter, you may be called on to write all different kinds of copy for all different kinds of companies. Most of the time, transferring your skills from product to product is fairly easy; there are basic principles of marketing that can be easily applied across multiple scenarios. Who’s making the decision? How long is the sales cycle? Ever gotten it wrong?

At the occasion of our latest event in December, we joined forces with agency The Reference, to conduct a survey regarding the digital marketing evolutions in my home country, Belgium. The objective: give an overview of the landscape in Belgium in terms of budget, resource allocation, satisfaction, challenges and plans for 2012. We targeted decision [.]. Blog Research digital marketing Belgium mobile websites ROI social media Belgium The Reference

Happy to welcome my daughter Lauren Schaefer back as a guest blogger on {grow} … . Hello readers! It has been too long and I’ve missed you! I’ve been a bit busy graduating from college, moving to New York City, starting my job as a professional event planner and writing my own blog that has nothing to do with social media. But now I’ve had some time to breathe, so time to write!

Unless you’ve been living under a rock for the past several months, you’re undoubtedly familiar with Google+ and have hopefully opened an account on the newest social media platform. Even after trying out its interface, do you still find yourself asking what exactly it is or what you should be doing with it? Do you think that Google+ is one too many platforms to spend time on? Other.

I have always believed that those who can’t lead, are forced to resort to the tactic of fear in order to get people to listen and follow them. mean, let’s face it: fear is a powerful force in the human mind. There are some prognosticators that would have you believe that 2012 is going to be a bleak year for business. Well, I am an optimist and plan to present an alternative view!

When a customer is disgruntled, the act of solving his problem in a rational and authentic way – which means not hiding the truth – is an excellent opportunity to turn him into the most loyal customer you ever had. Does this mean we should mess up as a strategy? Of course not. You [.]. Blog Connected marketing Customer relationships Customer service Research conversion customer reviews reevoo reputation Right Now Retail Consumer Report

I’m delighted to present today eight exciting new mini-case studies which demonstrate the power of social collaboration to create business value through new product development. These were curated by Amy Kenly and her team at innovation consulting firm Kalypso (Amy will also be a speaker at the April 27 Social Slam event!). think you’re going to be energized by these inspiring ideas!

As a marketer, your most important job is to generate leads for your business. But what good are those leads if they’re not managed properly? These 7 statistics show that if you’re not taking advantage of lead nurturing , you’re losing customers and revenue, and very quickly. 1. Only 25% of leads are legitimate and should go to sales. 50% are qualified but not ready to buy. Source: Gleanster Research). Nearly half of your leads will not be ready for a sales call immediately after their first conversion. Source: SilverPop/DemandGen Report). Source: InsideSales.com). Source: MarketingSherpa).

Ecommerce companies that invest in inbound marketing will greatly increase their opportunity to grow online sales, lower COCA (cost of customer acquisition), and increase new customer retention. Consumers connect, rate, discuss, and consume product information and reviews like never before, making a strong online presence paramount for all sizes of ecommerce businesses. Enjoy! Connect with HubSpot